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Definition - The late home-leaving or return of children to live with parents in order to take advantage of both monetary and emotional transfers. Vanier Institute of the Family, 2004 Return to comfort of the family nest The arrangement that Ruth Stone has with daughter, Jane-Anne and son-in-law, Michael Shortly is not typical Tn 1976, Ruth and her husband George, downsized from a large Victorian home at the corner of Cochrane and McDonald Streets, to a smaller two-storey house on North Street. Four months later, they broke ground on an adjoining lot, for the comfortable Tudor home that Ruth still occupies. Jane-Anne and older brothers, Paul and Dan had already left home at that point. George succumbed to cancer in 1994, and although they had separated years earlier, Ruth now had the rambling space to herself. Jane-Anne, who grew up in Greenbank and attended Port Perry High School began her travels with a year in Switzerland to complete her Grade 13 school year. Back in Canada, she of her grandson. When Jane-Anne’s husband Michael ex- pressed his desire to care for his mother-in-law into old age during a walk at the cottage in the summer of 2002, Ruth offered up her home. “Next thing we knew, we were at the table designing a space with Dan,” says Jane-Anne. They lifted the roof over the garage to ac- commodate a lovely one bedroom apartment. The project took about nine “With four children and three step children, we have a blended family with a cluster,” says Jane-Anne. “And because our house is sort of a drop-in center for youth, there’s probably 100 kids in Port Perry that call Mom Grammy.” “Dad used to have this theory about the nest. From the time I was three, he’d say ‘there comes a time when you have to get out of the nest’ and since Thirst did, I I kept moving - like ching. Now I don’t months to complete and it allows Ruth to “still putter in the garden” and “borrow a cup of sugar or scotch tape.” “You know, I used to come up to this storeroom and think about what a lovely spot this would make for my own mother, never dreaming that she wouldn’t be capable of climbing stairs and that the space lly meant for me,” says stability” ... undertook her nurse’s “God brought me home,” Ruth. training at Toronto Gen- ... Jane-Anne Shortly Jane-Anne adds with a eral and then began her chuckle, “And we made sure that career. She spent seven years living in Vancouver and twelve years in Peterborough before her first marriage dissolved and she moved back to Port Perry with children, Rebecca, Jonah, Emma-Jane and Daniel. After changing houses every two years, Port Perry became a haven. “When Daniel was a little boy he would say “Mom, just keep these boxes for next time’,” says Ruth focus@observerpub.ca the stairs were wide enough for an automatic lift so if Mom can’t carry a bag of groceries or if we just want to have fun one day...” As far as relationships go, Emma-Jane who studies at Redeemer College in Ancaster and Daniel who will be off to bio-medical studies in Guelph in September, have become comforta- ble in the knowledge that their Grandmother’s house is not just a second, but a first home. ‘It’s given our family greater Jane-Anne Shortly he to move anymore. God brought me home,” explains Jane-Anne. Tn the past three years, the entire family has blossomed with the living arrangements. “It’s given our family greater stability,” says Jane-Anne. “I read somewhere that kids growing up in an extended family will have better relationships when they grow up - so I have forward to. After all, next year Michael mT I will become empty nesters too.” Both Ruth and Jane-Anne highly recom- mend their arrangement. “Mom is an only child and I didn’t have a sister, so we're really close,” she says. As for the greater family, Monday nights Ruth hosts Jane-Anne, Michael and son, Dan to acard game at her kitchen table. “Mom was the hub of the family,” explains Jane-Anne, “so now the hub has moved here above the garage.” By Barbara Hunt FOCUS - Avcusr 2006 11